


[Meta] Vampirism for fun and profit

by aralias



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Gen, Meta, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29203131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: A list of things we learned about vampirism in 'Wayward Son'. Big ticket items are obviously to do with ageing and the effects of vampire bites.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	[Meta] Vampirism for fun and profit

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago and didn't put it onto AO3 as it's mostly just a list of 'facts', rather than me having specific thoughts about anything. But people have been reading it again (February 2021), so I thought - might as well preserve it. 
> 
> [Original post](https://captain-aralias.tumblr.com/post/188023949975/vampirism-for-fun-and-profit) on my Tumblr, @captain-aralias. See the comments and re-blogs for potential additional information or thoughts.
> 
> I also put a lot of this information into the Simon Snow wiki. 
> 
> (P.S. Post your meta to AO3!)

## Ageing and immortality: 

Lots of this obviously has to be taken with a pinch of salt, as it comes from Lamb who is not a reliable source. I assume it _is_ the truth - but given that we have no proof, it could easily be ignored or disproved in fic or later books.

It’s strongly implied that vampires are immortal unless killed. Also, they either have very slow ageing or don’t age. 

Lamb implies repeatedly that he’s around 300 years old (when vampire society was very different), asks Baz how old he is “really”, and the NowNext vampires specifically want vampirism because it stops them ageing. 

> "I pre-date choice. ... All my people understood was war and hunger, and demons who came in the dark." (Chapter 52)

Does vampirism stop ageing immediately? [@krisrix](https://krisrix.tumblr.com/) theorises that it’s to do with drinking human blood, rather than animal blood, which makes sense to me. However, we might also hypothesise that since Lamb’s brother killed his parents before he went for Lamb, it’s possible he was much younger than the 34 he claims to appear to be when he was turned and has now aged to around 34.

There’s plenty still to play with here - Baz isn’t very good at asking questions about his condition, and did not get information about what loopholes exist. 

Lamb also claims that you can’t stop being a vampire, but presumably he has never tried:

> "You won't feel so close to them, the Normals, once you've outlived your ties to mortality ... There's no unbecoming, Baz. There's no sidestepping your true identity. All the rabbits in the world won't change you back. They'll just leave you thirsty." (Chapter 52)

## The Turn and other effects of vampire bites:

I was willing to challenge this one when we just had ‘Carry On’, although it’s presented as pure fact that Baz’s fangs will turn someone into a vampire. But of course he literally does not know. (Which is all the proof you should need that everything is up for grabs, unless Baz has experienced himself. And even then, we might be able to write it off later because he’s so isolated and doesn’t know how to be a vampire.)

Again - none of this is provable as once again nobody thinks to get any evidence for Lamb’s claims or Shepard’s hearsay. (Why not look up that guy who got bitten? Isn’t this relevant to your life, Baz?) However it seems likely that not all bites result in someone becoming a vampire.

> "Oh I doubt he Turned him," Shepard says, smothering his chips in ketchup. "Vampires hate to Turn people. They either take a sip and let you go - or drain you dry"

Lamb says the same thing:

> "So you don't Turn people?" "Rarely. Most of don't want the chaos and competition. Almost no one wants the responsibility." (Chapter 52)

However, it’s worth noting here again that when he talks about his brother he states that his brother didn’t want a “comrade”; he was “thirsty”. So it seems like if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can definitely Turn someone accidentally. 

If, however, you do know what you’re doing, you don’t have to kill or Turn. Again - we primarily hear from the vampire’s POV, but Lamb strongly and repeatedly implies that people like being bitten. 

> "No need to leave a corpse when you can leave a satisfied customer, you know?" (Chapter 44)

> "Because I didn't enjoy being bitten." "Then someone was doing it wrong." (Chapter 52)

You could argue that this is supported by the sight of the Normal (?) girl Baz sees at the party, who does seem to be having a good time.

> "A Very beautiful woman - a girl my age - stumbles past me, laughing. There's blood streaked down her neck" (Chapter 44)

Not entirely sure whether the guy who gets bitten later in the chapter is enjoying it, though, so ... again, room to play with whatever.

> "The man's neck goes limp. His head droops back, his hat falls off. His eyes immediately glaze over. I've seen that face on a deer before." (Chapter 44)

Turn is always capitalised, btw. 

**Different kinds of blood:**

Shephard notes that Baz looks greyer than the rest of the vampires:

> Not as drained and ghostly. If this is what a vampire is supposed to look like, then maybe Baz is a vampire with an iron deficiency." (Chapter 53)

Lamb probably confirms that Baz’s colour and the kind of blood he drinks are related:

> "No wonder you're so pale. You're malnourished."(Chapter 50)

The NextBlood vampires are probably all really new vampires (like - the last 10 years), but they don’t look like Baz. They look incredibly healthy and are almost certainly surviving on human blood they get from somewhere. They don’t drink blood; they transfuse. 

> "They don't even drink, Baz - they transfuse. They won't touch anything that hasn't been tested frozen, and stored. I've heard they've started pasteurising.” (Chapter 50).

We also learned (and we learned this for sure) that you can fang-up or fang-down at will. (Chapter 50)

**The smell of Simon:**

Last time on ‘Baz doesn’t want to eat his friends but he also does’, he told Simon he smelt like bacon and cinnamon buns (CO, Chapter 71) - although he might have been being metaphorical. (I tend to think not, but could be convinced.) Later, at the leaver’s ball, he says Simon’s smell has changed - and now he smells like “something sweet and brown. No more green fire and brimstone.” (CO, Epilogue)

This time we get a new description, although it tallies with the CO Epilogue.

> Simon smells like the kitchen after you pop popcorn and melt butter. There's a singe to it, with a round, yellow, fatty feeling that sticks to the roof of your mouth. Bunce is sharper and sweeter - vinegar and treacle. (Chapter 14)

And when Simon is shot:

> Simon's blood smells like brown butter. (Chapter 60)

Baz tries to block this out with Altoids, which ~~he must buy specially from some sort of posh-person shop because I’ve never seen them on sale~~ are an American sweet not widely consumed or sold within the UK.

> They're very good for blocking out blood smells. Especially the spearmint flavour." (Chapter 55)

## The thrall and other vampire abilities:

There’s not much to say about this, but I thought it came out of nowhere. And I know the gang had lots of worry about but no one was like, holy shit - vampires can do that??

> Lamb did something to me. Hypnotized me or something. (Chapter 55)

In this particular case Shepard appears to those around him to be napping. (Is that all the thrall can do? We have no information.) It doesn’t feel good once it wears off.

> I'm still a little hungover from my vampire thrall. (Chapter 50)

The other abilities are all confirmation of, or build on, things we learned in ‘Carry On’.

**Advanced hearing:** Lamb and Baz are both able to hear Simon’s heartbeat. (Chapter 52)

**All senses are** _ **particularly**_ **advanced at night (** which I think might be knew. We know they don’t like sunlight, but this seems to be more than that. Like - senses get better.) Although I treat this as the least trustworthy piece of information Lamb gives us, as it’s just before the betrayal. (Chapter 54) 

**Vampires move in a particularly stealthy way that is very noticeable:**

> Vampires aren't especially beautiful (though some are). That's a myth, I think - vampire beauty. What they are is especially rich. And especially ... liquid. They move like oil, like shadows. Like cats. (Chapter 44)

**General speed, strength, feeling like a brick wall if you punch them, faster healing (to go with not getting sick in CO).**

> I know that I heal faster than other people. (More proof that I'm not a person.) But I've never really tested my limits. No one's ever emptied a shotgun into my chest or kicked me in the gut with steel-toed cowboy boots...

> The worst I've been injured before this was when the numpties took me. I think my leg healed right away even then - but it healed wrong because I was stuck in that coffin.

> Before that, there were fights with Simon. A few black eyes over the years, a split lip. I healed fast from those injuries, but so did he. I think Simon's magic used to heal him, even when he couldn't cast the spells to heal himself. (Chapter 37)

## Vampire weaknesses: 

I don’t think much is new here, but as Baz remarks at the end, **we certainly do know a lot about how to kill vampires. Some methods include: fire, beheading, being possessed by a demon and then getting a vampire to bite you, staking.**

> The vampire impaled on my axe handle has already started to wither. Like it was the magic in his heart holding him together. I pull back the stake, and he falls - a man-shaped pile of blood and boots and ashes. (Chapter 22)

**Methods that don’t work include: gunshot and potentially most other weapons,** although I can’t tell whether the Ren Fayre weapons are just terrible. (I assumed they were, and that this was hilarious.) 

**There’s a bit more information about crosses as well.** I thought Doctor Wellbelove had given Simon a specific vampire talisman, but apparently literally any cross will do, bonus points for silver. (Simon’s is gold.)

> There are at least three people wearing crosses sitting near me. One of them must be silver; my nose won't stop running. (Chapter 9)

This makes me think that maybe what happened was that Simon said ‘my roommate’s a vampire, help!’ and Agatha’s dad was like, I don’t think so, Simon, but OK here you go - here’s a cross that will protect you from the, ahem, “vampire”. It was supposed to be a placebo, but since no one knows anything about vampires, Simon got back to school and Baz was like ‘argh, wtf is this??”

(N.B. It makes no sense to me that the cross thing is real, btw. Not all crosses are blessed, which means they’re just shapes. Why would vampires be repelled by a shape?)

**Vampires get sunburnt**. And go black, rather than red. (Chapter 16) Baz thinks it might not heal, but it does, just more slowly.

**Baz, at least, can get drunk.** Lamb implies that other vampires don’t - is this because Baz is a weirdo vampire, or because he just isn’t a big drinker? I assume the latter, but could be convinced of the former.

## History and society: 

There’s a lot of stuff about the Las Vegas vampires, which I’m not recording because there’s lots of it and I’m mostly interested in this stuff for Baz-related fic and I’m assuming he will never go back to Vegas.

Are things like vampires being ‘tight lipped’ and vampires being ‘over the top’ specific to Las Vegas or the species? I assume it’s cultural and specific to the Vegas vampires.

Some famous UK vampire killings:

> "I remember hearing, back in the fifties, that there wasn't a single one of us left in the UK - that Old Man Pitch had driven us out, like St Patrick driving the snakes from Ireland." (Chapter 44)

And of course Beatrix Potter apparently murdered every vampire in Lancashire.

You can apparently get a medal for slaying vampires. (Chapter 23) And all the shit the Mage did pales in comparison with him chatting to vampires. It doesn’t even seem to matter what he asked them to do for him (i.e. murder someone) - it’s literally just talking to them. (Chapter 37) The World of Mages is fucked up.

## Baz doing other vampire stuff:

> "Pork is the worst, sometimes I have to leave the Watford dining hall on days they served bacon" (Chapter 50)

Baz has also read Ann Rice and once ate his _own_ dog. (Chapter 22)

## That’s all I got!

According to the Kindle copy I have, the word ‘vampire’ (including vampires, but not vampirism) is mentioned 302 times in ‘Wayward Son’ compared to only 162 times in ‘Carry On’.

If you spot anything I missed, have other theories about vampires, or just want to talk about how Baz is a vampire, please let me know.


End file.
